Michael Meere

Visiting Assistant Professor of French

Early Modern French and European Literature, Thought, and Culture; Performance and Theater Studies; Queer and Gender Studies; Visual Studies; Critical Theory; Mobility Studies and Cross-Cultural Interactions

Monday 12-1, Wednesday 1-2, and by appointment

Fall 2014

FIST123 - 01Love, Sex, and Marriage

FREN215 - 01Composition and Conversation

FREN215 - 03Composition and Conversation

Spring 2015

FREN102 - 01French in Action II

FREN102 - 02French in Action II

FREN397 - 01L'amour interdit

Renaissance Society of America, Sixteenth-Century Society and Conference, Society for Seventeenth-Century French Studies, Society for Renaissance Studies, Society for French Studies, Society for Interdisciplinary French Seventeenth-Century Studies; North American Society for Seventeenth-Century French Literature; Gruppo di studio sul Cinquento Francese

Italian Studies

Michael Armstrong Roche

Associate Professor of Spanish

My recent scholarship has been focused primarily on what are often called Cervantes's "other works," the novels and plays that tend to get overlooked in the long shadow cast by Don Quijote. A book called Cervantes' Epic Novel: Empire, Religion, and the Dream Life of Heroes in 'Persiles' (U of Toronto P, 2009) explores how Cervantes's last novel transforms major literary, political, religious, and social debates of late 16th- and early 17th-century Spain into narrative art. It looks at the inventive ways Cervantes ironizes romance (especially Heliodorus's Greek novel) and the verse epic tradition (primarily, Homer, Vergil, and Tasso) by pitting them against each other and other genres. And it tracks the novel's insistence on finding both its pleasures and its lessons in moral complexity. Persiles is seen to be both epic and novelistic not only in the terms provided by the dominant early 17th-century reception of the Greek novel or in its characterizations, allusions, encyclopedic scope and virtuoso patterning but also in its aspiration to embrace all of the author himself--including the overriding desire to entertain. For several years now I have been at work on a book provisionally entitled Cervantes Plays: Ironies of History on the Early Modern Stage. It takes a close look at Cervantes's full-length plays and their imaginative, often experimental, and still-compelling dramatic engagement with key historical debates about Habsburg political mythmaking, Algerian captivity, the gypsy community, the rise of the commercial stage, marriage choice, and women's work. This book has emerged from the Theater Without Borders research collaborative, a group committed to exploring the international and comparative impact of early modern drama, especially--but not exclusively--of England, Spain, Italy, and France (see our website at www.nyu.edu/projects/theaterwithoutborders/index.html). Earlier I was contributing author to the scholarly catalogue for an exhibition I helped organize called Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment, which could be seen at the Prado, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum in NYC (1988-1989). Throughout, I have tried to practice a kind of scholarship that moves fluidly from text to context and back again (reading the text with and against the pressures of the moment and then reading that moment through the lens of the text); that draws on close reading in multiple disciplines (history of literature and art, comparative literature, genre theory, political, social, and economic history, history of ideas and philosophy, theology and religious history, and jurisprudence); and that is informed by textual, historical, and theoretical approaches to literature. Finally, I have looked for ways to bring my scholarly interests to a wider audience, serving--for instance--as general editor and primary co-author of three Let's Go travel guides (Let's Go France 1986, Let's Go California and the Pacific Northwest 1986, and Let's Go Spain & Portugal 1992).

Fall 2014: Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:15-5:15pm or at other times by appointment, at 300 High Street (office #206, tel. 860-685-3128). The best way to reach me is by email at marmstrong@wesleyan.edu.

Cervantes; Spanish (and European) Renaissance and Baroque theater; Spanish and Latin American poetry; medieval and 16th- and 17th-century Spanish literature and history (including Latin American colonial, transatlantic, and global perspectives); comparative literature and history (classical, medieval, and 16th- and 17th-century European primarily); Goya

Ellen Nerenberg

Hollis Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures

Prison Terms (U of Toronto P, 2001, winner of the Howard R. Marraro Prize from the Modern Language Association) concerned the spaces of confinement in Italian narrative between the years 1930 and 1960. Murder Made in Italy: Homicide, Media, and Contemporary Italian Culture (U of Indiana P, 2012) concerns the cultural significance of three post-1989 murder cases. These cases include the serial murders attributed to the "Monster of Florence," the matricide and fratricide case for which Erika De Nardo and Omar F`varo were convicted, and the conviction of Annamaria Franzoni for the murder of her three-year old son Samuele. Body of State: The Moro Affair, A Nation Divided (Fairleigh-Dickinson U P, 2011), a collaboration with two other colleagues, offers a translation of Marco Baliani's acclaimed dramatic monologue about the kidnapping and assassination of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro, setting it in the context of critical edition including an introduction, an interview with the artist, and an appendix of reviews of Baliani's 2009 North American tour

American Association of Italian Studies (AAIS); American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI); Modern Languages Association (MLA); International Association for Language Learning Technology (IALLT); American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL)

Spanish

Michael Armstrong Roche

Associate Professor of Spanish

My recent scholarship has been focused primarily on what are often called Cervantes's "other works," the novels and plays that tend to get overlooked in the long shadow cast by Don Quijote. A book called Cervantes' Epic Novel: Empire, Religion, and the Dream Life of Heroes in 'Persiles' (U of Toronto P, 2009) explores how Cervantes's last novel transforms major literary, political, religious, and social debates of late 16th- and early 17th-century Spain into narrative art. It looks at the inventive ways Cervantes ironizes romance (especially Heliodorus's Greek novel) and the verse epic tradition (primarily, Homer, Vergil, and Tasso) by pitting them against each other and other genres. And it tracks the novel's insistence on finding both its pleasures and its lessons in moral complexity. Persiles is seen to be both epic and novelistic not only in the terms provided by the dominant early 17th-century reception of the Greek novel or in its characterizations, allusions, encyclopedic scope and virtuoso patterning but also in its aspiration to embrace all of the author himself--including the overriding desire to entertain. For several years now I have been at work on a book provisionally entitled Cervantes Plays: Ironies of History on the Early Modern Stage. It takes a close look at Cervantes's full-length plays and their imaginative, often experimental, and still-compelling dramatic engagement with key historical debates about Habsburg political mythmaking, Algerian captivity, the gypsy community, the rise of the commercial stage, marriage choice, and women's work. This book has emerged from the Theater Without Borders research collaborative, a group committed to exploring the international and comparative impact of early modern drama, especially--but not exclusively--of England, Spain, Italy, and France (see our website at www.nyu.edu/projects/theaterwithoutborders/index.html). Earlier I was contributing author to the scholarly catalogue for an exhibition I helped organize called Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment, which could be seen at the Prado, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum in NYC (1988-1989). Throughout, I have tried to practice a kind of scholarship that moves fluidly from text to context and back again (reading the text with and against the pressures of the moment and then reading that moment through the lens of the text); that draws on close reading in multiple disciplines (history of literature and art, comparative literature, genre theory, political, social, and economic history, history of ideas and philosophy, theology and religious history, and jurisprudence); and that is informed by textual, historical, and theoretical approaches to literature. Finally, I have looked for ways to bring my scholarly interests to a wider audience, serving--for instance--as general editor and primary co-author of three Let's Go travel guides (Let's Go France 1986, Let's Go California and the Pacific Northwest 1986, and Let's Go Spain & Portugal 1992).

Fall 2014: Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:15-5:15pm or at other times by appointment, at 300 High Street (office #206, tel. 860-685-3128). The best way to reach me is by email at marmstrong@wesleyan.edu.

Cervantes; Spanish (and European) Renaissance and Baroque theater; Spanish and Latin American poetry; medieval and 16th- and 17th-century Spanish literature and history (including Latin American colonial, transatlantic, and global perspectives); comparative literature and history (classical, medieval, and 16th- and 17th-century European primarily); Goya

Robert Conn

Associate Professor of Spanish

Robert Conn is the author of The Politics of Philology: Alfonso Reyes and the Invention of the Latin American Literary Tradition (Bucknell University Press, 2002). At present, he is completing a book-length study of Simon Bolivar that focuses on the ways in which the liberator of South America has been used in different national contexts, with careful attention to the areas of politics, literature, and history. A section entitled "Vasconcelos as Screenwriter: Bolivar Remembered" was published as a book chapter in the collection Mexico Reading the United States (Vanderbilt University Press, 2009).

Maria Ospina

Assistant Professor of Spanish

Violence, drug trafficking and war in the hemisphere; memory studies; Latin American Film; Cultural approaches to space ; gender studies; cultural policy in Latin America; narratives of youth and childhood in the region; geography and political economy; media studies.

Fridays 9:30 to 10:30 and by appointment

Contemporary Latin American culture and film, Colombian literature, film and popular culture, histories of violence and the production of memory; Cultural production around drug trafficking, armed conflict and neoliberal reform. Contemporary topographies of jungle and natural frontiers.

Romance Studies

Michael Armstrong Roche

Associate Professor of Spanish

My recent scholarship has been focused primarily on what are often called Cervantes's "other works," the novels and plays that tend to get overlooked in the long shadow cast by Don Quijote. A book called Cervantes' Epic Novel: Empire, Religion, and the Dream Life of Heroes in 'Persiles' (U of Toronto P, 2009) explores how Cervantes's last novel transforms major literary, political, religious, and social debates of late 16th- and early 17th-century Spain into narrative art. It looks at the inventive ways Cervantes ironizes romance (especially Heliodorus's Greek novel) and the verse epic tradition (primarily, Homer, Vergil, and Tasso) by pitting them against each other and other genres. And it tracks the novel's insistence on finding both its pleasures and its lessons in moral complexity. Persiles is seen to be both epic and novelistic not only in the terms provided by the dominant early 17th-century reception of the Greek novel or in its characterizations, allusions, encyclopedic scope and virtuoso patterning but also in its aspiration to embrace all of the author himself--including the overriding desire to entertain. For several years now I have been at work on a book provisionally entitled Cervantes Plays: Ironies of History on the Early Modern Stage. It takes a close look at Cervantes's full-length plays and their imaginative, often experimental, and still-compelling dramatic engagement with key historical debates about Habsburg political mythmaking, Algerian captivity, the gypsy community, the rise of the commercial stage, marriage choice, and women's work. This book has emerged from the Theater Without Borders research collaborative, a group committed to exploring the international and comparative impact of early modern drama, especially--but not exclusively--of England, Spain, Italy, and France (see our website at www.nyu.edu/projects/theaterwithoutborders/index.html). Earlier I was contributing author to the scholarly catalogue for an exhibition I helped organize called Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment, which could be seen at the Prado, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum in NYC (1988-1989). Throughout, I have tried to practice a kind of scholarship that moves fluidly from text to context and back again (reading the text with and against the pressures of the moment and then reading that moment through the lens of the text); that draws on close reading in multiple disciplines (history of literature and art, comparative literature, genre theory, political, social, and economic history, history of ideas and philosophy, theology and religious history, and jurisprudence); and that is informed by textual, historical, and theoretical approaches to literature. Finally, I have looked for ways to bring my scholarly interests to a wider audience, serving--for instance--as general editor and primary co-author of three Let's Go travel guides (Let's Go France 1986, Let's Go California and the Pacific Northwest 1986, and Let's Go Spain & Portugal 1992).

Fall 2014: Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:15-5:15pm or at other times by appointment, at 300 High Street (office #206, tel. 860-685-3128). The best way to reach me is by email at marmstrong@wesleyan.edu.

Cervantes; Spanish (and European) Renaissance and Baroque theater; Spanish and Latin American poetry; medieval and 16th- and 17th-century Spanish literature and history (including Latin American colonial, transatlantic, and global perspectives); comparative literature and history (classical, medieval, and 16th- and 17th-century European primarily); Goya

Robert Conn

Associate Professor of Spanish

Robert Conn is the author of The Politics of Philology: Alfonso Reyes and the Invention of the Latin American Literary Tradition (Bucknell University Press, 2002). At present, he is completing a book-length study of Simon Bolivar that focuses on the ways in which the liberator of South America has been used in different national contexts, with careful attention to the areas of politics, literature, and history. A section entitled "Vasconcelos as Screenwriter: Bolivar Remembered" was published as a book chapter in the collection Mexico Reading the United States (Vanderbilt University Press, 2009).

Ellen Nerenberg

Hollis Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures

Prison Terms (U of Toronto P, 2001, winner of the Howard R. Marraro Prize from the Modern Language Association) concerned the spaces of confinement in Italian narrative between the years 1930 and 1960. Murder Made in Italy: Homicide, Media, and Contemporary Italian Culture (U of Indiana P, 2012) concerns the cultural significance of three post-1989 murder cases. These cases include the serial murders attributed to the "Monster of Florence," the matricide and fratricide case for which Erika De Nardo and Omar F`varo were convicted, and the conviction of Annamaria Franzoni for the murder of her three-year old son Samuele. Body of State: The Moro Affair, A Nation Divided (Fairleigh-Dickinson U P, 2011), a collaboration with two other colleagues, offers a translation of Marco Baliani's acclaimed dramatic monologue about the kidnapping and assassination of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro, setting it in the context of critical edition including an introduction, an interview with the artist, and an appendix of reviews of Baliani's 2009 North American tour

Maria Ospina

Assistant Professor of Spanish

Violence, drug trafficking and war in the hemisphere; memory studies; Latin American Film; Cultural approaches to space ; gender studies; cultural policy in Latin America; narratives of youth and childhood in the region; geography and political economy; media studies.

Fridays 9:30 to 10:30 and by appointment

Contemporary Latin American culture and film, Colombian literature, film and popular culture, histories of violence and the production of memory; Cultural production around drug trafficking, armed conflict and neoliberal reform. Contemporary topographies of jungle and natural frontiers.